28dic06

A legal farce: Iraqi court confirms Saddam Hussein's death sentence.

The confirmation yesterday of the death sentence against Saddam Hussein is the
final act in a legal charade directed from Washington. The Iraqi Appeal Court upheld
the verdict against Hussein and two of his co-accused—Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti and
Awad Hamed al-Bandar—brought on November 5 for the execution of 148 Shiites
from the town of Dujail in 1982. With the only avenue of appeal exhausted, all three
can be hanged at any time within the next 30 days.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel hailed the court decision, declaring it to be
“an important milestone” in efforts “to replace the rule of a tyrant with the rule of law”.
In fact, the Bush administration has repeatedly demonstrated its contempt for basic
legal norms, riding roughshod over international and US law. It has pressed for the
execution of Hussein as a means of demonstrating to the world that it is capable of
killing its opponents with impunity.

The Appeal Court decision comes as no surprise. From start to finish, the trial of
Hussein and senior figures in his Baathist regime has been a piece of political
theatre with a preordained outcome. The Bush administration refused to place the
former Iraqi strongman before an international tribunal, drew up the flawed rules for
the Iraqi High Court and has overseen every aspect of the case via a large team of
American lawyers based in the US embassy in Baghdad.

Washington’s Shiite-dominated puppet government in Baghdad has brazenly
interferred in the trial, exploiting it to bolster support among its social base. Shortly
after the verdict was handed down last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
preempted the outcome of the appeals process, telling the BBC that he expected
Hussein to be hanged by the end of the year. Significantly, yesterday’s decision was
first announced, not by the Appeal Court, but by a government minister—National
Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie.

International legal experts and human rights bodies have repeatedly criticised the
legal process. In a statement issued yesterday, the US-based Human Rights Watch
(HRW) described the trial as “deeply flawed” and called on the Iraqi government not
to carry out the execution. A detailed 97-page HRW report on the Dujail case issued
last month highlighted numerous breaches of elementary legal process, pointing to
government interference in the trial. The report concluded that the court’s conduct
reflected “a basic lack of understanding of fundamental fair trial principles”.

In January, the chief judge in the case, Rizgar Muhammed Amin, was forced to
resign after senior government officials denounced him for giving too much leeway
to the defendants and defence lawyers. His replacement Raouf Abdel Rahman
repeatedly overrode defence protests, expelling the defendants and their lawyers
from the court. Defence challenges to the legitimacy of a court established through
an illegal invasion were simply swept aside. Former US Attorney General Ramsey
Clark, who was part of Hussein’s defence team, yesterday described the legal
process as a travesty.

The trial was never about justice. The first charge was deliberately confined to the
Dujail killings in 1982 to avoid any reference to Washington’s close collaboration
with the former Iraqi strongman, particularly in late 1980s. The Bush administration
was deeply concerned that Hussein would follow the example of former Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic and implicate the US in the crimes of the Baathist
regime.

Following the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979, the US actively encouraged
Saddam Hussein to invade in 1980 as a means of undermining the newly
established Islamist regime. The Dujail incident occurred amid a series of setbacks
to the Iraqi army in the Iran-Iraq war. The execution of Shiite men and boys from the
town of Dujail was carried out in reprisal for an attempt on Hussein’s life by members
of Dawa—the same Islamist party to which Prime Minister Maliki belongs.

In 1983 and 1984, former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went to Baghdad as
a special presidential envoy to cement closer ties with the Hussein regime. Following
those visits, the US provided military and economic assistance to Iraq, including for
the development of the chemical weapons that were used against Iranian troops and
Kurds allied to Iran. A second trial is currently underway into atrocities against the
Kurds in the late 1980s—the so-called Anfal campaign. There is, of course, a
complete silence in the court on US complicity.

Whatever Hussein’s undoubted crimes, the Bush administration is directly
responsible for war crimes of a far greater order of magnitude in Iraq. More than
650,000 Iraqis are estimated to have died directly as a result of the illegal US-led
invasion and occupation. The charge of which Hussein has been convicted—a
reprisal for an attempt on his life—is standard operating procedure for the US
military in Iraq, which has mercilessly bombed and strafed buildings and villages
suspected of harbouring anti-occupation insurgents.

US troops routinely break into houses and arbitrarily detain Iraqis. Thousands
continue to be held without trial in US-run prisons and subject to torture. High profile
detainees have simply disappeared into the American gulag of secret jails and
torture chambers. Many of the Shiite death squads that are now criticised in the
American media had their origins in the “Salvador option” first implemented in 2004
following the appointment of John Negroponte as US ambassador. Hit squads
operating under the cloak of the Interior Ministry are widely believed to have been
responsible for the murder of three of Hussein’s defence lawyers.

The Appeal Court announcement coincides with the US administration’s plans for an
escalation of violence against the Iraqi people. President Bush is preparing to
announce a huge “surge” of between 20,000 and 50,000 US troops to Iraq for a
bloody crackdown in Baghdad and in the western Anbar province against anti-US
insurgents and the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. What is being prepared is
a crime that will dwarf anything that Hussein ever carried out.

Those responsible for the criminal invasion and occupation of Iraq—Bush, Cheney
and the rest of the gangsters in the White House—should all be put on trial for war
crimes.

[Source: By Peter Symonds, World Socialist Web Site, 27dec06]

This document has been published on 29Dec06 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a
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